There is a stand-out sentence in David Park's novel 'The Truth Commissioner' that reads: " “Day after day, it's as if the dam is breached and out pours a torrent of rising levels of hurt that have been stored over long winters of grief.”

Of course, in Northern Ireland there is no such Truth Commission but, rather, a continuing battle over the past that poisons the present.

Recently, there has been one of those periods of remembering, within which the dam was breached; this in the remembering of October 1993 and that week that stretched from the Shankill bomb to the Greysteel shootings and the six killings in-between - Martin Moran, Sean Fox, James Cameron, Mark Rodgers and brothers Gerard and Rory Cairns.

The dam was breached in the recalling and telling of stories from the rubble of 1993, from the ambulances and from the homes visited by the horrors of that week. There are people who will never forget and they must be heard.

I spoke on this at the launch of Professor John Brewer's latest books (The sociology of compromise after conflict and The sociology of everyday life peacebuilding).The event was at Queen's University on October 31st. Brewer's work and that of his research team is important in its listening to the experiences of those directly touched by conflicts in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

Around 200 stories were logged; research that records personal experiences and the needs of those who have been hurt. These are not political scripts or lines, and this work will make an important contribution to the continuing discussions, debates and dialogues. Often, we find that those who have been hurt the most give the most to peace-building efforts.

And why is it important that we listen to and hear and record these experiences? Because when we remember we also forget. Two days before the Shankill bomb, John Gibson was shot dead at his home on the outskirts of north Belfast. The day after the Greysteel pub attack, reserve police constable Brian Woods was shot and died days later. In our remembering, they become forgotten people; lost in the blizzard of the conflict years.

The legacy process currently being developed in Northern Ireland is far too political in its design and intention. We need a past process - not a police process or a prison process. Sending a small number of people to jail is not addressing the past. We have watched as the negotiating process has become a political play.

So, what do we need to do?

We need to hear and record the stories of those who want to tell them. Those academics, along with others who have experience in this, should help design that process. That there has been no decision yet on a pension for the injured is one example of the political play and delay.

We need to de-politicise legacy, and we need to work out how the maximum amount of information is achieved to address the many unanswered questions.

The past must not be repeated.

What will the Stormont House Agreement of 2014 deliver - the structure that includes an Historical Investigations Unit and an Independent Commission on Information Retrieval? Can the two work together?

For decades, politics has been part of the problem, and the political agreement of 2014 has become a disagreement and a battle, within which there is no healing.

How do you lift the past out of that fight? How do you stop us from shovelling our experiences on top of future generations? There is much to think about as the Northern Ireland Office considers the responses to its recent consultation and the next steps.

Brian Rowan is a journalist and an author - including ‘Unfinished Peace’

This report summarises women’s experiences of intimate partner (domestic) violence (IPV) in Northern Ireland; the implications of IPV for physical and psychological well-being; its impact on children; and how experiences of IPV are shaped by violent political conflict, religion and culture. It has been written by the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP), Global Justice Academy, School of Law, The University of Edinburgh.

The report also records how service providers such as General Practitioners (primary care doctors), social workers and police officers respond to IPV and how helpful victims find these responses. A particular focus of this report is on the changes that have taken place in Northern Ireland over the last few decades, including the transition from violent conflict to a peaceful political settlement.

This report is based on findings from more than 100 qualitative interviews with women victims/survivors of IPV from across Northern Ireland conducted at two junctures: first in 1992; and latterly in 2016. It provides up-to-date information on the experiencesof and responses to violence against women in intimate relationships in Northern Ireland today, and investigates key similarities and differences in experiences of and service responses to IPV between 2016 and 1992.

The chapter on Constructing citizenships: the Protestant search for place and loyalty in post-independence Ireland (by: Ian d'Alton) is particularly worth a read. It will give valuable insight into how the Protestant community found its place in a new Ireland.

The rights and duties associated with the concept of citizenship are a central aspect of the process of identity-building and state formation. This book explores the origin and evolution of the concepts of citizenship and identity in Ireland from a broadly historical perspective, tracing their development in terms of rights and duties, from classical times, through the medieval period and partition in Ireland, to the present difficulties surrounding Brexit and the refugee crisis.

Ireland’s population has, by the standards of states elsewhere in Europe, remained fairly stable and homogeneous, at least until recently. The present refugee crisis presents Ireland with the prospect of asylum seekers and other migrants with very different cultures, traditions and senses of identity arriving on a scale quite unknown previously, with consequent difficulties surrounding their admission and integration into Irish society.

An examination of how the basic criteria and conditions under which citizenship has been conferred here compares with those for granting citizenship in other parts of Europe suggests that evolution of citizenship concepts in Ireland has more generally accorded with familiar European patterns of development.

Depending on how future relations between the UK and the EU are agreed following Brexit, however, the island of Ireland faces the prospect of immigrants from other EU member states enjoying what are in effect the rights of citizens in the Republic of Ireland but no such rights in Northern Ireland.

A few years ago I had the opportunity of listening to Kingsley Akins give a presentation about the importance of connecting with our diaspora. Diaspora is not a word we use every day, but it is a concept we have intimate knowledge of in Ireland.

A diaspora is a large group of people with a similar heritage or homeland who have since moved out to places all over the world. “The term diaspora comes from an ancient Greek word meaning ‘to scatter about.’ And that's exactly what the people of a diaspora do — they scatter from their homeland to places across the globe, spreading their culture as they go. The Bible refers to the Diaspora of Jews exiled from Israel by the Babylonians. But the word is now also used more generally to describe any large migration of refugees, language, or culture.”[1]

Aikins speaks with considerable authority. He has served as Chairperson of the Ireland Fund. That organisation describes its mission as being “to harness the power of a global philanthropic network of friends of Ireland to promote and support peace, culture, education and community development across the island of Ireland and among Irish communities around the world.” Over the years it has done just that - raising hundreds of millions for community and charitable causes through wealthy Irish diaspora.

As I sat listening to the presentation, all those years ago, a question arose in my mind. How successful has the Protestant community in Ireland been at forming a good relationship with its diaspora? Indeed, is there a diaspora of any size to reconnect with?

Prof Brian Walker’s article (page 7) provides a fascinating insight into the extent of the Church of Ireland and Protestant diaspora.

He notes: “In the United States of America some 35 million claim Irish ancestry, and of these a majority are Protestant or from a Protestant background. This is largely because of emigration of large numbers from Ulster in the eighteenth century and the consequent multiplication of their descendants. Most of these early immigrants were Presbyterian but some were Church of Ireland.”

Irish emigrants did not just head towards North America. Prof Walker also notes: “By the early twentieth century it was estimated that up to a third of the Australian population had some Irish ancestry. It is reckoned that Protestants made up about 20 per cent of total Irish immigration. Among the Protestant Irish in Australia, Anglicans were the major single element. Many came from Ulster, but also from other parts of Ireland.” Emigration to Great Britain has also been extensive over the past two centuries.

What is the point of connecting with our diaspora? The temptation is to think of the only motivation being to seek finance for development or good of those of us who are still in Ireland? The experience of the Ireland Fund in raising significant funds for community and charitable causes has undoubtedly shown how much good can be done in this way. But there are other benefits that come from connecting with those of us who have left these shores.

By reconnecting with our diaspora:

We rekindle a sense of being part of something much bigger than ourselves and the people immediately around us.

We can draw on their confidence and experience, sometimes built over generations.

We learn from the perspectives of our kin who have found their home on other places on the globe.

We are reminded of the resourcefulness of the human spirit, that can create a new future, whatever the challenges.

To suggest reconnecting with our diaspora it not to propose something divisive or narrowly tribal. It is about connecting with something that will empower us to work for the good of all. It is to draw on resourcefulness with the aim of benefitting our neighbour, ourselves and the common good.

By Earl Storey

This originally appeared in the Church of Ireland Gazette (08/09/17) and is reproduced with permission

On 17 March every year many millions of people all over the world recall their family or ancestral links with Ireland. Members of the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland number under 400,000 but they relate to a much greater number among the Irish diaspora.

In the United States of America some 35 million claim Irish ancestry, and of these a majority are Protestant or from a Protestant background. This is largely because of emigration of large numbers from Ulster in the eighteenth century and the consequent multiplication of their descendants.

Most of these early immigrants were Presbyterian but some were Church of Ireland. In the nineteenth century, however, we find emigration of many more members of the Church of Ireland from both the north and south of Ireland.

One such example was Alexander Stewart from Lisburn, a Trinity graduate, who went to America in 1818 and became one of the wealthiest citizens in New York, thanks to the success of his department stores. On his death his widow paid for the construction of the Episcopalian Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, New York, in his memory.

Another example, and more typical of the background of a majority of these nineteenth century emigrants, was the Kearney family, including Fulmouth Kearney, from Moneygall, Co.Offaly. Members of this family of small farmers and shoemakers, all baptised in Templeharry parish church, went to America in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Fulmouth Kearney’s direct descendant, Barack Obama, U.S. President, made a state visit to Ireland in 2011.

My great uncle, David Walker, was a surgeon who went to Canada in 1863 and then to the U.S. in 1865, where he joined the American cavalry. He served for 14 years in the army in the West, including time on Alcatraz Island, California, then a military base and prison. He finally settled as a resident doctor in Portland, Oregon.

A 2006 survey from the University of Chicago showed that of those in America who described themselves as Irish, 48 per cent were Protestant, 29 per cent Roman Catholic and 23 per cent of other or no religion.

Canada was another important destination for emigrants from Ireland. In 1991 around 3.8 million Canadians claimed full or partial Irish ancestry. It has been established that approximately 55 per cent of Irish settlers in Canada were Protestant. Among the Protestants, more were from an Anglican than a Presbyterian background. While a majority came from Ulster, significant numbers also arrived from the rest of Ireland. Ontario was a favourite region for these emigrants from Ireland.

By the early twentieth century it was estimated that up to a third of the Australian population had some Irish ancestry. It is reckoned that Protestants made up about 20 per cent of total Irish immigration. Among the Protestant Irish in Australia, Anglicans were the major single element. Many came from Ulster, but also from other parts of Ireland.

Emigration from Ireland, north and south, to Great Britain has been very extensive over the last two centuries. The greater number of these emigrants came to England and Wales rather than to Scotland, although emigrants from Ireland and their descendants make up a higher proportion of the current population in the latter. It has been estimated that probably around 25 per cent of Irish emigrants to Britain in the twentieth century has been protestant.

My grandfather Samuel Mercer, second son of a farmer from Tartaraghan parish, Co.Armagh, went with my grandmother to Glasgow in the early 1900s. He worked in a department store, eventually becoming manager. My mother was born in Glasgow in 1917. She and her family worshipped in All Saints Episcopal Church, Jordanhill, Glasgow. Unusually, they returned to Northern Ireland when my grandparents retired to Bangor, Co. Down, in the 1930s.

The number of people in Britain born in Ireland peaked at 952,000 in 1971, but still stood at 753,000 in 2001. Many come from a Church of Ireland background. Two well known examples today are Graham Norton, the television personality, originally from Bandon, West Cork, and Bishop David Chillingworth, former Primus of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, born in Dublin but brought up in Northern Ireland.

It is fair to say that most if not all readers of the Gazette will have relatives in many places outside Ireland. The examples I have given of my family could be replicated easily by others. Today, there are only some 400,000 members of the Church of Ireland in Ireland. At the same time they are part of a diaspora of members and descendants of members of their church and community world wide which numbers many millions.

Brian M.Walker is Professor Emeritus of Irish Studies, Queen’s University of Belfast. He is author of the recently published History of St George’s Church Belfast: faith, worship and music.

This article first appeared in the Church of Ireland Gazette and is used with permission.

]]>Guest@Guest.com (Guest)BlogThu, 14 Sep 2017 15:13:29 +0000Special edition of Irish Archives on the 1916 Rising features a hidden Church of Ireland story by writer Julie Parsonshttps://www.journeyinselfbelief.org/news/item/55-special-edition-of-irish-archives-on-the-1916-rising-features-a-hidden-church-of-ireland-story-by-writer-julie-parsons
https://www.journeyinselfbelief.org/news/item/55-special-edition-of-irish-archives-on-the-1916-rising-features-a-hidden-church-of-ireland-story-by-writer-julie-parsons

The writer Julie Parsons spent some time at the RCB Library last year analysing little–known Church of Ireland sources – including preachers’ books, parish magazines, vestry minutes and a variety of other parish resources. She then contributed an article based on and colourfully illustrated with extracts from these sources, published last year (for the year that was in it) in a commemorative journal (Irish Archives: the journal of the Irish Society for Archives) dedicated to “Hidden Pages” of the 1916 Rising.

Irish Archives: Hidden Pages From the 1916 Rising is co–edited by Dr Susan Hood, RCB Librarian and Archivist, and Elizabeth McEvoy, Senior Archivist in the National Archives of Ireland. The concept of revealing hidden pages and dialoguing with the public was first envisaged by the ISA in 2015 in collaboration with St Patrick’s Cathedral. A seminar entitled ‘Hidden Pages from World War One’ saw archives professionals reveal their explorations of previously unknown archives to make the events of the First World War more accessible to people 100 years later. In the same spirit, a subsequent seminar was held at the beginning of 2016 to encourage nuanced debate on the complex topic of the Rising, demonstrating how hidden archives and the stories they contain can underpin a true understanding of significant historical events.

So Julie’s article, entitled “From ‘Cheerful day, good congregation’ to ‘The undiluted celt, a curse’: Responses to the Easter Rising and its Aftermath as Recorded in Church of Ireland Parish Registers, 1916–1925” draws on relatively obscure sources to bring to life the impact of events on particular Church of Ireland communities. Opening with an article published in the June 1916 edition Mariners’ parish magazine of the in Dún Laoghaire, county Dublin (or Kingstown, as it was known then), the editor apologises for its late appearance because of the Sinn Fein rebellion which disrupted life in the city centre. He then goes on to present in vivid terms the response of the Mariners’ parish to what we call the Easter Rising and its aftermath: “The Irish rebellion of Easter 1916 has brought out the worst and the best in Human nature. We do not wish to dwell further on the dark side and the horror of it.” (RCB Library, P368.25.3).

The ‘Cheerful day, good congregation’ piece appears alongside a variety of other articles providing colourful insight to other hidden aspects of events during the Rising. Colum O’Riordan, General Manager of the Irish Architectural Archive, takes the reader on a journey through the architectural legacies of 1916; Stephen Ferguson, Assistant Secretary of An Post, uses archives at the Postal Museum in London and An Post materials in Dublin, to explore the experiences of GPO staff during Easter Week, bringing to life a thrilling sequence of stories of how the city’s communications routings came to be re–established after the seizure of the GPO; the Wexford County Archivist Gráinne Doran examines the collective effort of the men and women in county Wexford during Easter 1916 and finally, Ellen Murphy, Senior Archivist at Dublin City Library and Archive, reveals reactions to the Easter Rising through the lens of Monica Roberts, the 26–year–old daughter of the Vice–Provost of Trinity College Dublin, who kept a diary of events in a 33–page Pitman exercise book.

Julie Parsons comes from a family with a long line of Church of Ireland clergymen. When she decided to research the reactions of the Church of Ireland clergy to the Easter Rising and its aftermath, using preacher’s books and vestry minutes, she sought out clergymen to whom she was related. Her article, therefore, features Canon Harry Dobbs, vicar of All Saints Blackrock, who was her stepfather Peter Dobbs’ father and the Revd Hamlet McClenaghan, rector of Dunshaughlin, her great–uncle. Both gave her valuable insights into the feelings and immediate responses to the changes which were taking place in the political, social and religious life of Ireland in the early 20th century. Her new novel The Therapy House is set in contemporary Dún Laoghaire but draws on original research which Julie conducted into the people of the Mariners’ Parish, where her grandfather, Canon George Chamberlain, was rector from 1925 until 1959.

To order your copy of the journal, including Julie’s illustrated article, at the special price of €9/£7.80+postage please click here

A few years ago I toyed with the idea of going to a coach. A short bout of illness had prompted me to re-evaluate how I wanted my future to develop. Getting the services of a coach seemed like a way to plan some new things ahead – or so I thought!

I looked around for someone whom I thought would fit the bill, without great success at first. Looking back, I realise why! What I had been looking for in a coach was not for someone to help me rethink some things. What I really wanted, without admitting it to myself, was someone to do it for me – someone to present me with the future, to do the work that I didn’t feel up to doing at that time.

Recently I listened to someone describe the role of a coach like this – it is to help a client find the resources within themselves to solve a problem or to create something new. I realised that what I had been looking for all those years ago was someone to rescue me rather than to help me find the where withal within myself to create something different.

Had I found what I was initially looking for it would certainly have been easier in the short-term, but not to my ultimate benefit. Happily, the situation was brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

A few weeks ago Senator George Mitchell visited Belfast again. His visit was a reminder of the extraordinary levels of help we have received in Northern Ireland. We have had the skills of the most talented and the attention of the most powerful as we try to make our painful journey to peace. Senator Mitchell’s visit prompted talk of who would facilitate our political leaders in negotiations after the elections.

Globally we are living in extraordinary times. One of the things we are discovering is that there is not an inexhaustible supply of international attention or energy available to be devoted to our search for lasting peace. We are glad for the attention and help we have received but recognise others have their own issues to face and future to create.

A facilitator has a job to do. It is to help our leaders to find the resources within themselves to do what they need to do. Our leaders have their own job to do. One part of that is obvious.

It is to solve immediate problems. Yet it is so much more than that. It is to create something new – a way of finding reconciliation and a better future.

Gaining political power is not for the fainthearted. Neither is the exercise of it. It is hard because our road to reconciliation means dealing with the past, present and the future.

Political leadership is something most of us have an opinion about, but a task few would envy. Yet, to paraphrase one leadership expert, “We need more in leaders than just the ability to gather a following.”

Seeking help for the task is more than reasonable.

Yet, whatever help our political leaders seek, it should not now be for someone to rescue them – to do it for them.

As with the job of a coach it is help for them to find, within themselves, the resources they need to make the hard decisions. Upon such does our future depend. It was ever thus.

“One of the roles of leadership is to tell your own people about the way things really are on the ground”. So said the cofounder of a multi million-dollar international company.

Although talking exclusively about business his words could just as easily apply to politics in our own community. Over the years leadership on all sides has failed to tell its own people about the way things really are. It helps explain some of the political paralysis and perpetual crisis with which we choose to live.

All of this has a human cost. Vast amounts of political energy used when the challenges of recession, health or education are knocking at the door. Your own people at times left disorientated and confused. The leaving of a vacuum that fuels frustration. Avoiding rather than dealing with some of the deepest underlying issues of our conflict.

So, what is it that political leadership does not speak to its own people? Ironically it is something known by almost everyone. It is no secret yet we pretend that we do not know it. The unspoken truth is different for each part of our community.

What has unionism needed to be told? Simply that for any sort of future there would have to be political accommodation and a sharing of power. Not just with political opponents, but with sworn enemies.

For the republican community it was this. After so many lost lives, even amongst its own people, the reality is that republicanism was not achieving what it tried to do by armed conflict over so many years. Most people know and accept these realities yet they always remain unspoken. All sides are tempted to act, in their politics and more especially in their public dealing with one another, as though these things were not the case.

There is always a temptation for leadership to tell their people what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.

We are well used to political crises in Northern Ireland. Something peculiar is now happening. It is weariness, even exhaustion, amongst voters. It is more than just a sense that we have been here before, or that politics must be about more than perpetual crisis. Something has broken in people. People are worried for their livelihoods, the education of their children and health services.

Perpetual political crisis with all the human consequences is no longer acceptable when there is so much else for the rest of us with which to deal.

Increasingly people believe more is going on than the struggle to reach agreement over this or that, no matter how big or small the issue.

They begin to feel that leadership on all sides is hamstrung, looking over their backs, boxed in as a result of the things left unspoken to their own people over years. More and more people wonder if this lurks behind whatever the crisis of the moment happens to be. They also sense that what flows from it is a logjam of decision making – decisions not just about issues that profoundly affect our everyday life, but also what sort of society we are choosing to become.

There is a truth that now needs to be. It is that the only possible future for our community is not some sort of sullen hatred or endless competition between power-blocks. It to find a process of reconciliation. The challenge is to find a way whereby people who have been sworn enemies and injured one another deeply can find a new way of living together.

Difficult as it may be to contemplate the challenge, it is to find a reconciled future.

It is brave political leadership that tells its own people about how things really are. Yet that it is the role of a leader. Leadership is not about those who lead. It is about the people who are being led and about meeting their needs. It is about having a vision of the future that is good not only for your own people but also your neighbours.

The words of Ronald Heifetz say it all – “In a crisis we tend to look for the wrong kind of leadership. We call for someone with answers, decisions, strength and a map of the future, someone who knows where we ought to be going …. in short, someone who can make hard problems simple”. This place is an impossible burden on leaders, whether self-inflicted or otherwise.

Heifetz identifies an alternative. “We should be calling for leadership that will challenge us to face problems for which there are no simple, painless solutions – problems that require us to learn new ways”. That is leadership, and the urgency attaching to the point where we have arrived suggests this is needed now.

Those who lead us must decide what sort of leaders they will be. Those of us who are led must decide what sort of leadership we honestly want – those who tell us what we want to hear or those who tell us what we need to hear.

Responsibility for our future then rests where it has always been – not only with those who lead us but also with us who are led.

A new book entitled Rebel Prods: The Forgotten Story of Protestant Radical Nationalists and the 1916 Rising by the late Dr Valerie Jones, is to be to be launched by the former Archbishop of Dublin, The Rt Revd Walton Empey, at the Treasury, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Monday 21 November 2016 at 6.30pm.

The book, brought to fruition by Dr Valerie Jones’s daughter, Dr Heather Jones, an Associate Professor in History at the London School of Economics, is published by Ashfield Press and has been supported by the Church of Ireland’s Historical Centenaries Working Group as one of its several contributions to marking the centenaries of 1916 during this calendar year.

The outgoing Chairman on the Historical Centenaries Working Group, the Rt Revd John McDowell, says, ‘One of the objectives of more or less everyone who has been involved in the Decade of Centenaries has been to explore the complexity of Irish History during this crucial period. Many people are aware of the involvement of well known, and often well connected, Irish Protestants in radical politics during the revolutionary period. However, there were others whose participation on the republican side are much less well known, or barely known at all but whose stories deserve to be told and reflected upon.

‘In her research the late Dr Valerie Jones devoted her prodigious energy to uncovering and re–telling their stories which have now been brought to publication by her daughter Dr Heather Jones. This book fills a gap in the scholarship of that period and should also be of interest to a much wider readership who, once again, history will surprise.’